Prizes And Competitions

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) is a small agency in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whose mission is to increase the interoperability and use of electronic health records and health IT. We don’t have the funding and personnel of larger agencies, and, for the most part, this is fine. The entrenched industry stakeholders know what’s happening at ONC, our policies, toolkits and initiatives.
But to be truly innovative, we need input from more than just the big stakeholders, particularly in this age of smartphones and apps.

You may not know it, but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has changed your life.
There’s the Internet, for starters. And if that isn’t enough, the agency also has played a pivotal role in shaping GPS, stealth aircraft and drone technology. In fact, ever since its creation under President Eisenhower, DARPA has been transforming life on and off the battlefield.
And the ideas haven’t dried up. A scan of programs currently in the works reveals DARPA to be as forward-looking and vital as ever.

There’s more than one way to harness the wisdom of the crowd.
In honor of December’s monthly theme, we’re diving into and defining the various ways that federal agencies use public contributions to meet real needs and fulfill important objectives.
Crowdsourcing Two’s company, three’s a crowd—and getting input from many is crowdsourcing.
A White House blog post defined crowdsourcing as “a process in which individuals or organizations submit an open call for voluntary contributions from a large group of unknown individuals (“the crowd”) or, in some cases, a bounded group of trusted individuals or experts.

The biggest advocates for the use of challenges in the public sector gathered at the General Services Administration (GSA) headquarters, October 8, to acknowledge the remarkable rise of a community that has grown steadily in number and influence over the past five years.
More than 300 federal employees representing agencies spanning government attended in person or watched via livestream to mark the five-year anniversary of the Challenge.gov.
“It is clear that open innovation is here to stay,” said Kelly Olson, director of the Challenge.

Long before the final prize is awarded, a successful challenge starts with a master plan.
That’s the point experts drove home during Operational Best Practices and Lessons Learned, the third webinar in Challenge.gov’s ongoing series on running successful prize competitions.
Sandeep Patel, open innovation manager for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Idea Lab, joined forces with Ben Bain and Dr. Jyotika Virmani, of XPRIZE, to offer strategies for agencies to plan and execute problem-solving events that deliver on their potential.

We are thrilled to share an update from our competition colleagues at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The third annual comprehensive report detailing the use of prizes and competitions by federal agencies to spur innovation, engage citizen solvers, address tough problems, and advance their core missions is now available — Federal Prize Authority 2013.
You can read details about the remarkable results from 87 prize competitions implemented by 25 federal agencies in fiscal year 2013, representing a more than 85 percent increase from 2012.